Maybe I CAN do this…

Lauriel got a job and began working last week.  I was worried about how I would cope because since about April 2013 she has been doing a bulk of the responsible adulting and parenting, because of my less than stellar mental health.

Prior to last week, I can’t really remember the last time I took the kids to school by myself, or went and did the groceries by myself (actually, it was Christmas Eve 2014… what was I, fucking crazy???), or did the little errands that needed to be done.  Sometimes I would go to school with her.  Sometimes I would go to the supermarket with her.  Very rarely did I do anything alone that would put me in contact with those scary human things.

Depression and anxiety do fucked up things to your brain.  The simplest of adult tasks seemed impossible and I lacked motivation to do… well, anything really.  Even eating was hard and on a daily basis Lauriel would have to force me to eat breakfast, to eat lunch.

You can understand how shocked I am that 10 days into needing to be self sufficient, and being responsible for everything relating to the kids (until 5pm), I am thriving.

I wouldn’t say I LOVE my wife being at work all day, but finally, after years and years of feeling like I am inadequate as an adult, I feel like a real adult.  I feel like a real mum.  I feel like a real wife.

I really am shocked that I feel so mentally well, because I thought it’d be the opposite.  I had images of myself crying all day while Lauriel was at work.  I had images of needing to force myself to pick the kids up, and crying all the way there.  I had images of being pissy that I had to go to the supermarket, of getting out of that place and being ready to punch a brick wall.

But no.  Being in a routine has done wonders for me.  Doing what I want, when I want is no longer an option.

I know that I have to be awake at 7.30am. 
I know that I have to have the lunches done and kids out the door by 8.30am. 
I know that I need to do x, y & z on certain days. 
I know I need to leave home and be at school by 2.50pm. 
I know I need to bring the kids home and get afternoon tea and homework underway. 
I know that I need to have dinner planned and depending on what it is, underway by 5.30pm. 
I know that between 5.00pm and 5.30pm Lauriel gets home and we spend a few minutes cuddling and talking about the day. 
I know that around 6.30pm dinner is had. 
I know that between 7pm & 7.30pm the three younger kids go to bed. 
I know that 8pm means lights off. 
I know that around 9pm Eloise goes to bed. 
I know that around 10.30pm we go to bed.

The last time I felt ‘blah’ (aka: depressed) or anxious was at least 10 days ago, and that is a major accomplishment for me.

I do miss my wife like crazy when she’s at work, but I’m also busy enough that I don’t really have time to sit and mope, or to feel sorry for myself.  For the first time in a long time, my brain doesn’t feel quite so cluttered and the world doesn’t seem quite so scary.

Except on Sunday and Monday, when my wife has days off.  By then I’m over being a responsible adult and tend to become a bit of a recluse.

 

Impromptu roadtrip #2!

We can’t resist a chance to get up close and personal with this gorgeous mountain!

Lauriel’s friend is here from France and today we decided……

Hey!  Why not go to New Plymouth!

So that is what we are doing!  In our defense, the weather IS beautiful today and tomorrow is meant to be crap – there is no point going to New Plymouth and not being able to see the stunning Mt. Taranaki!  New Plymouth has always been special to Lauriel and I, as a couple, so we never turn down a chance to go for the day.

Before you ask, yes, all four kiddos are coming with… it is the school holidays in NZ right now, and we wanted to do something nice with our crew before Aidan and Eloise head off with their dad on Friday.

Know what?  It was me – little miss travel anxiety – that suggested we go!  I didn’t even think ‘noooo, we might crash and die!‘, I just out and suggested a roadtrip.  Not only is it a roadtrip, it is also a roadtrip where I am in the passenger seat.  That generally equals double the anxiety for me; not because I don’t trust my fabulous wife driving, but because I have this intense need to be in control of the vehicle I am in.

Maybe, just maybe, I am finally taking control of this anxiety thing.  It’s a lovely feeling.

I am sure I’ll be back later with photos from our day in the ‘Naki!

Unlike our first trip to New Plymouth, I do not plan on spending hours in the ER with a sprained ankle…

 

Roadtrip: success!

… admittedly one of the highlights of our weekend

Well, our roadtrip was pretty damn successful!  So successful in fact, that the kids all want to move to Napier.  So do we.  Dreams are free, huh.

Rather than giving a hugely detailed account of our trip I thought I’d just post some photos and a general overview… here goes!

Friday
We left about lunchtime, got to Napier at 3.30pm and stopped at the Silky Oak Chocolate Company for some afternoon tea (OMG, the 3 hour trip was worth it for the Marshmallow slice!).  We then went into the city and spent some time on Marine Parade before heading up to the Bluff Hill lookout for some… well, looking out!  Bluff Hill was followed by a trip to Mexi Mama for an authentic Mexican dinner.  Well worth the cost, the food was simply delicious!  After dinner we found our way out to my friend’s house and spent a couple of hours socialising before getting some much needed sleep.

Kiddos all ready to go!

Rainbow on the way to Napier

Marshmallow slice from Silky Oak Chocolate Company

Entering Napier… I love the Palm trees!

Marine Parade

Bluff Hill

Mexican for dinner… seemed only right to have a Corona!

 

Saturday
We left my friend’s at around 8.30am and headed into Hastings to get some new shoes for Emersyn.  Her boots broke.  Of course.  After our quick visit to KMart we went up to the top of Te Mata Peak and were lucky enough to have a breathtaking view of Hawke’s Bay.  Te Mata Peak was followed by a short visit to Arataki Honey to sample some honey and learn about bees… it was quite fascinating really!  From Arataki Honey we finally made it to Skeinz.  It was love at first sight, I tell ya!  All that wool, all that inspiration – it really would have been easy to spend hundreds of dollars in there!  By then time was getting on so we had a quick stop at McDonalds for lunch before going to McLean Park to watch Hawke’s Bay beat Taranaki in the final pre-season match.  We were lucky enough to get a photo with one of our favourite players who seemed amused when Eloise told him her dad used to be his teacher when he was in primary school!  After the game we stopped at the famous Marine Parade playground before heading to Feilding to stay with friends for the night.

Te Mata Peak

Skeinz, baby!

The kids with Tony Lamborn, a family favourite!

… and a rainbow on our way out of Napier

Sunday
Was mostly spent in our pyjamas, having baby cuddles. Eventually we left, getting home at around 3.30pm.

My wifey and Miss Lillian (3mo)

As nice as our weekend was, it was lovely to get home!

… and Mr Bo was happy to have us home

“Let’s go on a roadtrip” they said…

You know how sometimes you get an idea and you know it’s going to blow up in your face, but there is a small chance it might actually work out splendidly and that small chance is enough to make you go for it?  Also known as a ‘<enter activity here> they said, it’ll be fun they said’ moment.  Well, we had us one of those on Tuesday; it went a little something like this:

“So where is the Hawke’s Bay game on Saturday?”
“Napier”
“Hmm, we could go… take all the kids, make a day of it!”
“We could…”
“We should…”
“We really should!”
“Let’s do it!”
*excited giggling ensues*

Us in October 2012, our first trip to Napier

On Wednesday ‘make a day of it‘ turned into ‘we could always stay the night‘.
This morning after a friends invitation to stay, ‘could stay the night‘ turned into ‘we will stay the night‘.
… and there is the potential for it to turn into two nights.

Yeap.  We, of [supposedly] sound mind are taking our four lovely (read: crazy) children on a 3 hour roadtrip to watch some rugby and explore Napier.  For a whole weekend.  A whole week.end. Whooooooole weekend.

Napier is a very special place for Lauriel and I – it is the first place we went away to together on a roadtrip – and I love that we’re going to have a chance to share it with our children.

I remember as a kid it was always so exciting to know we were going away for a weekend, especially if it was somewhere we didn’t often go (for us that place was Christchurch, Dunedin or Queenstown)… and I want our kids to have that same excitement!  Eloise is already extremely excited about going – and if you have a tween or teen, you’ll know what a joy it is to see them excited about something; especially something related to spending time with you!  Gabrielle and Aidan are also excited… to the extent they have decided they’re going to get up at 5.30am so we can leave as soon as humanly possible.  Emersyn is Emersyn.  As long as we are there, as long as Eloise is there, she is happy.

At the game we went to on our Napier trip

The kids don’t know that we are now leaving tomorrow as our original plan was to leave on Saturday morning.  Okay, this is going to result in tears from Gabrielle (how dare we make her miss a day of school?!) but I’m sure she will get over it by the time we are at McDonalds having breakfast *rolls eyes* (yeah, I stupidly promised McD’s as a treat for breakfast).

I’m not too sure what we’re going to do in Napier, but one thing is for sure, we’ll be checking out the Skeinz shop!  I hear there is a magical bin there that I simply have to check out!  Speaking of knitting, because Lauriel is doing the driving I will be able to do lots of knitting on the trip there and back!  Might even be able to get my niece’s Unadorned knit over that time!

Okay.  I said the kids are excited, but really… I am bloody excited.  I cannot wait to get away with my beautiful family for a whole weekend… it’s been so long since Lauriel and I went away and even longer since we went away with the kiddos.

On a more serious note: this is going to be a big test for my anxiety.  As I’ve posted before, one of my major anxiety issues is with being a passenger in a car driving long distances.  I am feeling a lot more relaxed about it than I would have this time a year ago and am actually considering emailing my psychologist to let him know just how far out of my comfort zone I’m stepping.  Sure, it might be a different story tomorrow morning, but all I know is I can do this and I will do this.

UPDATE: this is now a full weekend trip…. two nights away it is!

Sometimes I don’t think I’m fit to be part of the human race

A portrait of yours truly

Weeks like this are enough to make me pull my hair out.  Actually, earlier this morning that is what I was trying to do.  I was pulling on my hair hoping it would come out in my hand and some of the frustration I was feeling would magically disappear, perhaps it would float out of the empty hair follicles?

Like the title for this blog states: sometimes I don’t think I’m fit to be part of the human race, or at the least, that I’m not fit to be part of a human clan.  I should be shut off from everyone and everything, left to my own devices until I either ‘get over it’ (how I hate that fucking term, but it is all I can think of) or finally do lose the plot and get carted off in a straight jacket.

Rationally I know I’m not insane, that a straight jacket isn’t in my future – BUT – weeks like this I feel like I’m just one little step away from being locked up and the key being thrown away.  Perhaps into a volcano.  Or the core of the sun.  Somewhere as hot as a mofo, that would dissolve the key.

I can’t even explain what is wrong or why I feel this way.

Am I sad?  I dunno.  Maybe.  I miss my parents and my sister. (Yeah, now sit me watch and cry with those words out on virtual paper)
Am I angry?  Not really, well, only with myself.
Am I upset about something-in-particular?  No.  If there was something that was making me upset I would be able to fix it, this funk would have disappeared almost as soon as it began.

I tried to explain it to Lauriel yesterday, the best I could come up with was

Nothing specific, my blood just feels thick and I can’t breathe and my brain is cloudy and something is clutching at my throat

Nothing specific.  Sure.  How the hell can ‘nothing specific’ turn me into a complete and utter bitch?  I have a horribly short temper, I don’t know if I’ve said a nice word to the kids all week (okay, I have, a lot, but it doesn’t feel like it), I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to stay at home, I don’t laugh at things I’d normally laugh at.

I just feel tense.  Wound up.  Tight.  Hyper-sensitive.

Sound.  Sound is doing my head in.  Literally.  The constant chatter of the kids, the music they play on their tablets, the singing they do, the hovering, the- all our kids do is talk and make noise!

I hate myself for finding the above annoying – they are bloody kids – it’s what they do!  It’s what they are meant to do, it is what they are allowed to do, it’s what kids have done for hundreds of thousands of years!  They talk, they laugh, they sing, they ask, the whine, they giggle… and here I am, cringing and clenching my jaw, wishing like hell they would just shut the f**k up.

I’m like the fucking grinch right now.

What makes it worse is that it hasn’t been a one day thing, it has been the whole week.  I know it is probably caused by stress (money related), cabin fever (we have been stuck at home a lot due to being down one car and having a kiddo with a fractured ankle) and good ol’ hormones (seriously, you’d think evolution would have made hormones easier to deal with?).  Even though I know that, no matter how hard I try to force myself out of this funk, I can’t.

Even as I’m telling myself ‘calm down’, I am getting angry because of Bruno Mars or Taylor Swift playing from a bedroom, or because of a child asking for the fiftieth time if it is lunchtime yet, or because a fly keeps landing on my ankle, or because the wind is blowing a certain way (actually, I lie, there has been bugger all wind lately!)…

Irrational.  That’s me right now.

I KNOW it is going to go away, that it’s not a permanent thing… but that doesn’t make being in the middle of it any easier.

What I’m most ashamed of is that it’s my kids suffering.  They didn’t ask for a mother with mental health problems!  Perhaps it’s harder because most of the time I DO feel fine, in fact, I have felt better over the past six months than I have in years… but getting used to feeling good means that when I feel bad, I feel really, really bad.

Tell me how it is fair that ‘healing’ or ‘recovering’ or ‘whatever’ from depression can leave you feeling worse than when you AREN’T dealing with it?

Before I sign off, I feel the need to share this video again, all about a big black dog… the perfect metaphor for depression

 

They say there is an app for everything…

I call bullshit on this one – there is one app you can’t find – one to magically give you patience with children.

Okay, maybe it’s me that needs that app rather than everyone in general… I seem to be lacking the part of my parental brain that allows me to be patient with my children.  It’s not so much everyday-patience I need, it is patience while helping my children with something.  Homework, craft, tidying up, I just don’t seem to have the necessary skill set to stay calm and be patient.  I see parents who spend hours a week doing crafty things with their kids and I have to wonder how the hell they manage it?

I guess part of it is that as a person I am impatient.  I like things to be done now.  I don’t like waiting.

I NEED to remember this

When it comes to Gabrielle I think part of my lack of patience is related to the fact she is a perfectionist and is very hard on herself.  If she makes a mistake she gets very upset and I don’t seem to be able to deal with that in a positive way.  It is one of the things I love about my eldest, she aims so high and has such huge personal standards, but the downside is how she reacts when she doesn’t do something perfect the first time.  I am quite the opposite.  I expect myself to royally f**k up whenever I try something, so don’t have these same high standards for myself (and I know what when reading this my wife will scowl and me and tell me I’m too hard on myself).

I try my hardest to be patient but 9/10 I will fail and then feel down on myself because I think this makes me a shitty parent.  I know it doesn’t make me a bad parent, but as a parent we tend to compare ourselves to other parents and when I see them with the patience of a saint… it’s a horrible part of being a parent.

My wife has more patience than me, she will say she doesn’t, but trust me – she does.  Last week I had the pleasure of watching Gabrielle and her lying on the floor together working on hard maths equations.  I got frustrated just looking at the equations and Gaby was in tears within a few seconds… but with Lauriel she grasped it and I could see her confidence growing with each correct maths equation she did.  I could see how proud she was of herself when she mastered a sum that was in the thousands.

It makes me feel better to know that while I’m lacking in the patience area my wife isn’t and that kind of makes up for me being so impatient.

As sooooooooooo often happens when you have children, you think back to your own childhood and see the similarities between you and your children, but also between yourself and your parents.

I remember frustrating the hell out of mum when I was doing maths in primary school.  She would explain and explain and explain, over and over and over, but I just wouldn’t grasp the concept.  I would get grumpy.  She would try to explain again.  I would yell.  She would try to stay calm.  I would yell more.  She would get frustrated and yell back.  Maths would go away and I would turn my attention to something else.

Knowing that my mum had this same patience issue (with maths anyway!) makes me feel better… my mum was/is an amazing parent so perhaps my little patience problem isn’t quite the terrible parenting affliction that I think it is.  Time will tell.

This I do believe!

Done having children. It’s not easy.

When I was thirteen weeks pregnant with Emersyn I decided I was going to get my tubes tied when I had my scheduled cesarean.  By that point I had experienced four pregnancy losses and two anxiety ridden pregnancies, I knew I couldn’t put myself – and more importantly, my children – through another anxiety filled nine months or the heartbreak and depression that comes with a loss.  The high risk ob I was seeing (due to my epilepsy) was very hesitant to do this – telling me I was young and I might ‘meet someone’ and want more babies – because she clearly knew me better than I knew myself.  I stood my ground and when she asked me moments after I heard Emersyn crying for the first time, if I still wanted my tubes tied, I confidently told her yes.

And I did want them done.  I knew there were no more babies in my future, that there were no more pregnancies in my future.  I had two healthy children and that was enough for me.

Four and a half years on I am still 100% confident in my decision – but sometimes the knowledge I won’t add to my family can be a little overwhelming – and upsetting.

As little girls we dream of the day we will have our own babies.  As teenagers we try to do what we can to prevent that happening.  Then we reach the exciting, much anticipated time of our lives when we can throw away the birth control and make those baby dreams a reality.  We dream about what our babies will look like, begin compiling lists of names, pay attention to the latest in baby related furniture and on-the-go equipment, from the first day of our period we are buzzing with excitement because this month might be the month.

You have your baby.  Maybe you have another one.  Maybe you have three or four more.  Maybe more.

Then you decide you are done.  No more babies.  No more pregnancies.  That part of your life is over.

The metaphorical tumbleweeds tumble past and there are echos.

Just like that a huge part of your life is over.

So long as the decision was made because it was really what you wanted you move on with your life.  You take great joy out of the child or children you have, they grow, they change, they become their own little person – and then their own big person – they amaze you, your heart bursts with love on a daily basis.  Life is GOOD.

That is how my life is 99% of the time.  I love watching our children growing up and seeing how they change in the space of a year.  I love being able to take them places and do things that I know they will enjoy or appreciate now they are a little older.  I like that they sleep through the night, that there are no 2, 3, 4, 5am nappy changes, I like that I don’t have to sit like a zombie and feed a baby when I really need to be sleeping.  I like that they are becoming more independent the older they get.  I love seeing what they accomplish, all the new milestones they reach – especially at school – reading, spelling, doing times tables, representing their school in sports.

Everyday there is another reason to be proud of the four fantastic children we are raising.

But sometimes something switches in my brain and I feel sad that there won’t be anymore babies, that there won’t be another baby bump, that there won’t be the excited anticipation that comes with pregnancy.  Will it be a boy or a girl?  How big will he or she be?  Who will he or she look like?  What will he or she look like?  What will the birth be like?  Will she or he be a good sleeper?  What about a good eater?  When will he or she start sleeping through?  Get his or her first teeth?  Crawl?  Walk?

When my brain makes that switch I find it very hard to look at pregnant women or to look at newborns.  Each little baby I see when my brain is in this stage is like a knife through the heart.  I start to mourn the little boy or girl who won’t be entering our lives, I grieve for the pregnancy that could have started but never did.  I yearn for those first days with a new baby, I dream about experiencing all the firsts again; the first smile, the first laugh, the first time rolling over, the first time they get on their hands and knees, the first time they crawl, walk, talk.

It’s a confusing thing.  Deep down you know you are happy with the way things are, that you don’t really want another baby… but another part of you remembers all the lovely things that come with having a new baby, a new little member to your family.  You know the joy they bring, the awe you feel when you look at them, the way they continue to surprise you and surpass all your expectations.

Nothing prepares you for the myriad of emotions that come after the decision to not have anymore children or the fact these emotions can sneak up on you years later and unexpectedly.  A walk past the baby section of a store can be full of ‘aw, how cute!’ one day and a painful pang of sorrow the next… sometimes it is just too damn hard to walk past that section of the store.  It’s the same with babies, one day you see a tiny baby and  again it’s a case of ‘awwwww, how cute!’, the next day the sight of the same baby brings tears to your eyes and you have to look away.

I know we are done having babies.  I know we are both happy with that decision and know it’s right for us… but sometimes that part of the brain we have no control over switches and our maternal instincts go into overdrive.  Perhaps it’s evolutionary, perhaps it’s just another of the joys of being a woman; either way I hope that at some point along the way that switch in my brain stops flicking.

A few thoughts on virginity…

I am nervous for our children… and that doesn’t just come from being a mum with an anxiety disorder.

The teenage years are horrible.  I remember them well and I know everyone reading this will remember them well.  The hormones, the pressure, the angst, the need for independence and not feeling as if you are getting enough, the decisions that you need to make about life (seriously, WHY are we expecting 17 year olds to know what they want to do with the rest of their life?!), and then there is everything sex related, but particularly the losing of one’s virginity.

I remember being a teenager and the huge deal that was made about losing the ‘big V’.  Parents and teachers were slamming home the point that you should wait until you are properly ready and that you lose it under the right circumstances.  Friends and peers brag about losing their virginity, about how awesome sex is, about what positions they’ve done it in, about how many people they have had sex with.  There is so much pressure from both sides – some of it intentional and some of it unintentional – and it makes for a hellishly confusing time.

I lost my virginity faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar too early.  Years too early.  So early that I am now ashamed about it, particularly about the way I lost it and who it was with.  The thought of any of our kids losing their virginity so young and in such a way fills me with dread.  I’m probably bloody lucky I was at boarding school when it happened to me and I didn’t have to physically look at my parents when they found out about it.

But you know what?  In one way I am… I’m not sure that ‘glad’ is the right word, but because I can’t think of another word, let’s go with glad.  The one way I am glad that I lost my virginity so young is that I didn’t have to put up with the pressure from either side.  When the rest of my friends and peers were going through the inner turmoil of should-I-or-shouldn’t-I, I didn’t have that worry.  I had lost it, that big, enormous, momentous, life-changing moment had been and gone (I might add that after I lost my virginity I didn’t have sex for another four years).

I wish such a huge deal wasn’t made about it, that teenagers and young adults could be given the tools required to make an informed decision for themselves (I know this is idealistic, not every teen or young adult has the mental capacity to do this!), without being told by x, y, and z, that a, b, or c was the right thing to do.

Having the benefit of hindsight (I know, old person saying…) I can see that too much emphasis is placed on the wrong aspects of losing your virginity.  It all seems to be about ‘do have sex’ or ‘don’t have sex’ and then about age.  Teenagers are told ‘DON’T HAVE SEX!’ but they aren’t told why.  They aren’t given a chance for real dialogue about it (*I say this in a general sense, I know there ARE plenty of adults out there who have great dialogue re sex with their teens).  People seem to focus on the physical reasons to abstain, especially with regard to pregnancy and STI transmission, but it needs to go a lot further.  The mental side of things, the emotional side, the spiritual side.

But then the same can be said for the peer pressure side of things.  ‘It feels so good’ yeah, true, it can feel good, but it can also be uncomfortable as well as opening up a new world of insecurities.  I didn’t orgasm, I must be broken.  He/she didn’t cum, I must be doing something wrong.  Sex doesn’t feel good, there must be something wrong with me.

There is stigma attached to losing virginity too young or in the wrong circumstances, but there is also a stigma attatched to not losing one’s virginity young enough. It is like if you have lost your virginity by the time you are 15 you are automatically a ‘slut’, if you haven’t lost your virginity by the time you are 20 you are ‘frigid’ or there is obviously something wrong with you.

It’s a complete and utter contradiction.  What is so wrong with someone not losing their virginity until they are 20?  30? 40?  Older?   Why should it bother me if Jane Bloggs down the road didn’t lose her virginity until she was 25?

Why can’t people just accept that the decision to lose your virginity should be a private one, one that is made when each individual feels the time is right?  We (when I say we, I mean we as a society)  can give teenagers and young people tools to help them with that decision, we should be available for them to talk to about it if they want, we should be there to guide them if and when they want our guidance.  On the flip side, we should accept that not everyone is ready to lose their virginity in their teens and that some people may have no interest in losing it at all.

Virginity is a big deal – but it should be a big deal on an individual level – not a societal level.  I wish our four children could grow up in a society where virginity is what it is – having sex for the first time – and that the pressure so commonly associated with it, whether from the ‘don’t do it’ or ‘do it now!’ camp, didn’t exist. Losing your virginity should most be seen as special and I am by no means saying people should lose their virginity when they are too young mentally, emotionally and physically to cope with it.

I guess when I think about our children, I want them to not feel pressured to lose their virginity, but I also don’t want them thinking sex is evil or a ‘bad’ thing to do.  I want them to be able to talk with us when they have questions or feel confused or just need a sounding board, and that, between my wife and I, we can give them the ability to make an informed decision and lose their virginity when the time is right for them, not when society thinks it is right for them.

Separation anxiety… anxious parent style

Yeap. That’s me!

There is a lot of literature out there about separation anxiety in children… but not so much in adults.  I wish there was because I am suffering badly from it right now.

Emersyn is going to be spending this weekend with her dad, step-mum, sister and aunty.  I am very excited for her and am glad she has this opportunity, but it is not doing any wonders for my anxiety levels.  I have mentioned before that one of my anxiety triggers is being the passenger in a car on the open road… but it seems the idea of one of my children being a passenger in a car on the open road is also a trigger.

I know the anxiety isn’t rational.  I completely trust her dad both as far as caring for her goes, and as far as being a driver goes… but that doesn’t

The cheeky littlest love of my life

stop my brain from doing horrible horrible things.  Over the past couple of weeks I have imagined Emersyn dying in a crash, Emersyn being in a crash where she is the only survivor and has no one to hold her or kiss her or tell her it will be okay.  I have imagined her in hospital in a coma, in hospital with a cast from the neck down, I have imagined being in hospital with her and being told she is now a quadriplegic.

The closer I get to saying goodbye the faster my heart beats and the harder it becomes to breathe.  I just have to think about her leaving and my heart races and a feeling of impending doom descends over me.  I wish to hell that I could stop it because it isn’t a nice thing to have to live with, I don’t like thinking those thoughts, I don’t like lying in bed wondering how I will tell Eloise, Gabrielle & Aidan that their sister is dead or severely injured.  I don’t like thinking about how the hell I would break such news to my parents or sister.

I do this, you see.  I convince myself that something terrible is going to happen, when in reality I know it is my brain doing some crazy shit I

can’t explain and that in all likelihood nothing will happen.  People always say ‘she/it/you will be fine’ and my automatic response is ‘how do you know?’… I think it’s fair enough of me to say that, because really, how do they know everything is going to be okay, but when I flip it around… of course they would say that.  They are living in reality.  They know that there is only a tiny little chance of something terrible happening.  They can tell me everything will be okay because they know that everything will be.

This anxiety isn’t constant, but it is always in the background fighting for my attention.  The moment my attention waivers for one tiny second, boom, hello bad thoughts, hello thoughts of a little coffin, hello thoughts of never seeing my precious little munchkin again.  It was so bloody hard to send her to preschool today because my brain kept telling me ‘hey, this might be your last full afternoon with her… ever… ever ever!‘.  In return I freak out.  I panic.  I decide maybe I’ll just refuse to ever let any of my children out of my sight again.

Yeah, we are talking REALLY rational thoughts here folks.

The build up tends to be the hardest for me so I am hoping that the weekend will go quickly for me and that I can focus on what is happening rather than what could potentially happy if a man 300km away has a beer with his lunch then decides to drive and just so happens to go through an intersection without looking and crashes into the car Emersyn is travelling in.

I feel so vulnerable right now.  Ready to crack, ready to fall to pieces… I feel like a child who has bad nightmares, only I can’t seem to wake up from this mental nightmare of mine…

That about sums it up